


I Just Want To Talk.

by a_nonny_moose



Series: My AU [19]
Category: Markiplier Egos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 22:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11278443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_nonny_moose/pseuds/a_nonny_moose
Summary: He just wants to talk...





	I Just Want To Talk.

It’s 2am and Mark can’t sleep.  
The apartment is quiet, the street below a steady hum of noise– cars, footsteps, the occasional laugh. Lights flash through the blinds, the headlights of a passing vehicle moving over the rumpled bed, the pulled-back sheets, his face. With an annoyed sigh and a creaking of bedsprings, Mark rolls from the bed. He pads to the door, being as quiet as possible.  
“Maaaarrrrk,” Amy calls, roused by his movement. Mark turns and can just barely see her in the dim glow of the outside streetlamp, the outline of her rubbing sleepily at her eyes. “Why’re you u-u-up?” A yawn catches her midsentence.  
“Bathroom,” Mark whispers. Amy is already lying prone again, her form rising and falling with each breath. He isn’t even sure that she heard him.  
Mark opens the door to the hallway as slowly as possible, trying not to wake her again. There’s a distant honk from the street below. As the door quietly clicks shut, Mark turns to face the hallway. It’s dimly lit, the bathroom only a door away, a glowing night-light plugged into the wall.  
A slight jingle, followed by the click-click of nails on wood, follows Mark as he shuffles to the bathroom. Turning, a sleepy Chica catches him in her stare. He smiles, then waves her away. “It’s okay, girl. Go lie down, go.” Chica stares a moment longer before padding away.  
The bathroom is small, but, with the flick of a switch, brightly lit. Mark blinks in the light, wiggles his toes against the too-cold floor. For the second time in two days, he’s staring at his own reflection while the last of the night’s partygoers straggle home.  
He furrows his brow, grits his teeth, and finally speaks. When he does, it’s not the gentle whisper he uses to reassure Amy, nor the comforting command he gives to shoo Chica back to bed.  
He growls. “Have it your way, fucker. Let’s talk.”  
He shudders (but only because of the sudden cold in the room, he thinks) as black smoke collects in the space next to him, forming a cloud, then a mass, and finally, a man. Less than a man, Mark thinks. No, more. Not a man at all. Mark is looking at his reflection again, but not in a mirror.  
Dark– Darkiplier– smoothes his hair and smiles. “Let’s talk, Markimoo.”  
“You’ve kept me up for two nights in a row.” Mark’s voice is level, matter-of-fact. This is only the second time he’s met this entity, made real by the swoonings of millions of people (Mark can’t find it in himself to blame them for it)– but he already doesn’t like him. “Yesterday, you said you only wanted to talk–”  
Dark’s smile grows into a smirk, and Mark doesn’t like it one bit.  
“–and you didn’t fucking say anything. You stared, and laughed, and went away.” He’s trying to keep his voice low, but the sentence is filled with too much emotion, and down the hall, Mark can hear jingles and the clack of nails on wood. Dark is again silent, smiling.  
Mark takes a step back, a breath, and speaks again. “You’re the reason I’m having these nightmares, this insomnia.” It’s a statement, not a question, and Dark only nods– proudly? “What–” he has to stop himself before he shouts, “–the fuck is your problem?”  
The click-click stops, and there’s a snort where Mark knows that Chica is pressing her snout into the bathroom doorjamb. Dark raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, but doesn’t speak until a second, more dissatisfied snort sounds, and the clacking recedes into the living room.  
“I don’t have a problem, Markimoo.” Dark stops to look satisfied at Mark’s chagrin at the pet name. “If anything, you do.”  
“What do you–”  
“Your problem,” Dark says, leaning closer, voice echoing, magnified, “is me.”  
“I didn’t do anything to you, D-Dark.” Mark’s voice gets caught on the name, still unbelieving that this idea has come into being as the pale, scowling figure in front of him. It doesn’t go unnoticed.  
“Afraid? Or, unbelieving?” Dark steps closer, and the smoke still swirling in the light of the bathroom seems to grow thicker. “You made me. You’ve created a force that only wants to do you harm. And yet–”  
Mark has his back to the door now, his hand inching towards the handle. Dark is beginning to yell louder and louder, and the rest of the apartment seems unable to hear. The smoke is whipping around Dark now, the bright light of the bathroom growing dim, flickering against the rage of this entity. Mark can see Dark beginning to ‘glitch–’ his form flickers, a scream of rage echoing around the room. The apartment, outside of this room, is silent. Only Mark can hear, and see, Dark’s anger.  
“You are the one who made this happen, you and your ego.” Dark is hovering over Mark now, glowering, and Mark feels shorter for it. “Couldn’t leave well enough alone, you introduced something dramatic and romantic and sad for your viewers, something to keep them hooked. Me.” Spite is flowing out of Dark, and the light is beginning to flicker on and off, dimming the room.  
Mark isn’t sure if this is real or not anymore, but straightens up and shouts into the void, “I gave them the idea, they’re the ones who put life into you! You’re alive because they liked you– can’t you understand that?”  
Dark’s storm of smoke becomes a hurricane, and a seeming clap of thunder echos before the bathroom light goes out. Mark shields his eyes, refusing to cower. When he opens his eyes again, there are two glowing pinpricks in the darkness. Dark has become the darkness, so it seems, and Mark feels suffocated. Fear– this is real fear, he thinks. This Dark is a real-life monster, horror come to life. The pinpricks grow into eyes, and Mark can see Dark’s figure illuminated above him.  
“If they gave me life,” Dark spits, now inches from Mark’s face, “then my life is not my own. Regardless–” a sudden snap, and the light is back on. Dark is standing a step back, and Mark can breathe. “–you’ve created me out of hate. Out of ‘the fucking worst’ things about you. I just want to talk–” and here he smiled, slimy, sending a shudder through Mark “–about our…partnership.”  
Mark, still reeling from the abrupt shift, blinks. “Part- partnership? That isn’t… no–”  
Dark is glowering again, but keeping his distance. “This is a partnership, Markimoo. We’re the same, you and I, and you won’t keep me out for long.” A smirk, a blink, and Dark is nearly nose to nose with Mark, smiling, cupping his cheek.  
Mark feels a wave of repulsion roll through him, but holds his ground. “And what could you possibly want from this? Fame? Fortune?” Mark is spitting the words, assured that no one outside the room can hear them now.  
But Dark only smiles. “You know the kind of influence you have. And I, dearest Mark–” the name drips of contempt, “–want that. All of it. I’ll start with half, I’ll settle for a partnership… for now.” He raises an eyebrow. “But, soon, I’m going to have it all.” Dark is so close, they might be kissing.  
Mark isn’t one to get angry, even in the best of times. But a strange dark entity threatening his life, and him running on so little sleep– “And what do you think you’ll DO with it?” The shout echoes across a suddenly empty bathroom. Mark turns, confused, to catch his own reflection (in a mirror this time) winking at him. An unspoken, but fully formed phrase drifts across his mind, and Mark can tell that it hasn’t come from his brain. The thought itself seems to drip black smoke.  
“I think you know the answer to that one, Mr. Markiplier.” A chuckle, and then, “And the best part is this: you can’t stop me.”  
The words from earlier seem to bounce off the walls– “We’re the same, you and I–” but a distinctive creak of bedsprings jolts Mark out of his thoughts. Dark was gone, and so was the soundproof room; and his shout seemed to have traveled down the hall.  
There’s a violent clatter of both feet and paws on the floor, and it stops outside the bathroom door. Mark doesn’t realize, but he’s leaning against the door as Amy pounds on it from the other side. The vibration forces him into action.  
“Mark? Mark! Are you okay?” Amy’s calling from the other side, and he can hear Chica whining in earnest. Mark is suddenly tired.  
“I’m… I’m fine,” he calls, pulling the door open. Chica is all over him in an instant, and Mark takes the opportunity to sink to his knees to pet her, avoiding Amy’s eyes.  
Amy stands, still a little sleepy, still a little shocked by the scream. It had sounded like trouble, it had sounded like anger. Was he okay…?  
Instead of asking, she went to her knees with him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She could feel him shake, and hugged him tighter. Mark shook his head, staving off questions, and shifted to hold both her and Chica in his arms.  
3am found the three of them like that, a family, sprawled on the cool bathroom floor. The fourth member repressed, for now, by the warmth in the room.


End file.
